The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1887-01-12
FAMOUS FASTERS.
MEN WHO HAVE GONE LONG
PERIODS WITHOUT FOOD.
A Man Who Reduced His Size by
O. Diet of "Sea Pudding"
The Longest Fast
on Record.

on Record.
The great publicity given to the Iues-
ton of fasting now before the world,
excited by recent successful attempts to
sustain life. has induced me to state q
few facts not generally known in refer
ence to this matter. That life can be
supported and preserved and the ordi-
nary duties performed on diet compare
lively simple and limited in amount, is
an admitted truth and accepted by most
persons who have Investigated it. In
ills there lived a certain Thomas Wood,
born of intemperate parents. Up to the
age of forty he indulged himself to ex-
cess in meat of fatty nature and in large
uuntities of those articles of diet contain
ing fatty ingredients, such as cheese,
butter, and sugar, his beverage being
strong ale. He gradually developed into
q man of enormous dimensions, and
complication after complication of dis
orders arising day by day, he became
alarmed at the inevitable, which stared
him in the face. He gradually cut down
his diet by degrees, dim ,nishing his beer
to begin with, and then th ose diets con-
tanning sugar, and also animal flesh. He
| ultimately allowed himself only pud-
ding made of sea biscuit. With this
change of food all his symptoms disap-
peared, he became metamorphoscd from
monster into man once again. The
curious fact is that he abstained from all
drink of whatever description. The "sea
pudding" was composed as follows:
three pints of skinned milk; this being
boiled, was poured on one pound Of sea
biscuit broken into pieces. This COM
pound being boiled in cloth for two
hours, it became pudding of sufficient
consistency to be cut with a knife, and
on this alone he subs;sted for two years,
enjoying splendid health, and with an
absence of all those disagreeable symp-
toms before mentio! ed. The quantity
taken was II pounds at five o'clock in
the morning as his breakfast, and the
same quantity at noon for dinner; after
this hour he abstained from all food
uutil the next day. The case of Wood is
beyond all doubt, as two clergymen, two
doctors and the church warden in the
parish where he lived all testified to the
! truth of the facts. .....
Tracing the history up of fasters, we
come upon that of John Brown, miner
! in Ayrshire. lie li"ed buried in coal
mine without swallowing anything but
small quantities of chalybeate water
sucked through straw. this being suttl-
cient to sustain life even in contamina-
ted atmosphere, the nervous excitability
being thus diminished, and thus miti-
eating the cravings of hunger. This is
most interesting case, and bears com
parison at the present time with the Ital-
J Ian fasters and their wonderful drinks.
At Liege some colliers were shut up in
| p.t for twenty four days, and sustained
their lives with water alone from foun-
tain. Experiments were made and the
water analyzed. 1t was found to contain
upon evaporation nothing extraordinary.
! and only lime, or what is allied ''calx." !"
| The same constituent is supposed to have
listed in the fluid which supported John
Brown, as before alluded to. Why
should this not be the same in case
of the Italians?-water impregnated
with lime suspended in solution.
I only give it as theory, and l think
q correct one. Elizabeth Woodcock
in 17D!, lived eight days on snow water.
! Cecilia Steers, in 1920, Lived fifteen days
also on snow water alone. This came
from well thirty feet deep, and which
had been made for the purpose of OBJ
tanning chalk. Here we have another in
stance of the ''calx." In 1865 we read
of three women in Italy, buried for
, thirty-seven days in the snow. living on
snow water also 1mpregnated with lime.
| In 1885 Yorkshire gentleman, aged
sixty, absolutely was incapac:tated from
tax .ng food for thirty six days. When
in health he weighed 240 pounds, and on
the thirty-second day of his fast he was
reduced to 1873 pounds in weight. Or.
william relates case of an abstainer liv-
ing seventy-two dars without nourish-
ment, on which day he died exhausted.
He lived only on water favored with
orange-jui C. Henry Welby, in 1851,
for forty years. though of great wealth,
never tasted either fish, flesh, or fowl.
He died at the ripe old age of eighty
| four. During the whole of his retire
| ment his chief food was oatmeal Cruel
and salad of cool herbs.
The longest time recorded in the an.
nails of physic in which man existed
without food was sixty one days, the
! case being that of young man driven
. mad from overwork. Alexander Bene-
dictus mentions case at Venice where a
man lived for;y-six days without food.
The history of France states that Louis
: the Pious Emp ror of France, who died
! in 8 %, existed forty days without food
or drink. Albertus Magnus gives US the
! record of woman of Cologne, who lived
i for seven weeks only on water. 1t is
said that Democritus lived to the age OF
| 1Os years. and that in the latter part of
, his life, for forty days, he lived on
smelling honey and hot bread. Raulin
] relate another case where fifty-two days
of fasting took place on water alone.
The Me zeal Gazette for July, 1888, con.
tains two remarkable instances; one of
these, q patient, is stated to have lived
six wears without swallowing any food,
the mouth being occasionally mois-
! tened with water, tea or whey,
wnich was not swallowed, but spat
out. In the other case, which
WOO orioinolly recorded bY Professor